Just notes and jottings. All standard caveats apply.
comparative mereology of dimensional constructions
geometry + method of dividing or cutting = arithmetic
liberal arts as based on postulates
The common notions of Euclid are requried for diagrams to generalize
the unity of the Church in baptism, the truth of the Church in confirmation, the goodness of the Church in eucharist
Truth is an endless frontier.
In the sense that 'nature doesn't care about morality', it doesn't care about survival or health, either.
For custom to function as law it must be entrenched and recognizable; this is its way of being promulgated, etc.
beauty as a wholeness of harmonic brilliance
novels as depicting plausibilities and expanding moral vocabularies
To participate eternity is to be related to time in some way as cause to effect; and this we are insofar as we are an originating cause of change.
sacraments
-signify disposition to sanctify (sacramentals)
-signify perfection of sanctity (proper)
---figurative signification of Christ's passion itself as prophetically expected (Old Covenant, promised)
---signification of Christ Himself in His Passion (new covenant, given)
plausibility as the standard for exploration of concepts
the manifestation of an integral harmonic
It seems especially appropriate to animals to make use of customary signs.
the Church as communion (one), as sanctification (holy), as magisterium (true), as oecumene (catholic), as apostolate (apostolic)
the paradox of ethics (Joad): virtue must be natural and must be acquired
hieratic language as a source of poetic diction
Infused virtue originates beyond us, but does not act without our consent.
Angels do not deduce, but they understand deductive structures. (cf. Aquinas ST 1.58.3ad2)
mobile being in general
--as known in body
particular kind of mobile being
--by locomotion
--by motion toward form
----first mobiles (elements)
------in general
------in specific changes
--mixed and inanimate
--animate
The need for reasoning to be plausible is connected with the ineliminability of causal reasoning.
the connection between martyrdom and fraternity
mathematics as experiment for logic
the sacraments as theological notations
sacraments as indices, icons, and symbols
the longitude of final causation (Peirce): completeness admits of degrees
"The nonrecognition of final causation has been and still is productive of more philosophical error and nonsense than any or every other source of error or nonsense." C. S. Peirce (MS 478)
speculative grammar as physiology of signs
speculative rhetoric as study of the effectiveness of signs
indices as virtual precepts
index : that :: icon : what :: symbol : how
(1) Beliefs may be had of which we are not aware.
(2) Belief does not always appease the irritation of doubt.
(3) Belief does not always involve the establishment of a habit or rule of action.
Interpretation is not merely another word for translation.
Some of Peirce's odder semiotic claims make sense if one sees Peirce as conflating intelligibility and signification. Think about this.
A burning bush indicates extraordinary activity: a bush that burns but is not consumed indicates extraordinary activity that endures extraordinarily, the perpetually active.
Chinese philosophy as exploring human nature by analogies with the world
Love of the poor is godlike, for we are all of us the poor God loves.
the gradation of holy orders as an emblem of development of doctrine
To think about: Hume's account of causation cannot actually make sense of proportioning effect to cause.
Noachide Laws
--regard for God
----against idolatry
----against blasphemy
--regard for life
-----against murder
-----against living blood
--regard for family
-----against sexual immorality
--regard for property
-----against theft
--regard for social order
-----for courts of justice
the primary institutions of civil order: citizen, family, economic system, justice system, religious system
letting the universe unspool inside one's head
the use of euphemisms as a symptom of the politically shameful
Moses spoke to God face to face but did not see God face to face.
Kant's moral argument: religion is not needed to be moral, but religion of the right kind is the most humanly practical way to have a life that includes everything being moral requires
nominalism as the semantic aphasia of metaphysical reasoning
Desire, like death, always has more room.
Pr 18:7 & Socratic maieutic
consensus gentium & the human race as a community of inquirers
patience : end :: pride : beginning
syncretism as a response to spiritual winter
the paradox of mathematics as sense desensualized
Gothic as the Doric of Christianity
The hoarding of insight is a sign of the lack of it.
Rationalization is the basic mechanism of international law.
Probabilities are the mathematician's versions of metaphors.
pragmatic, mercantile, scientific, artistic, religious, and civic tones of philosophy
sacrament
--(1) representamen
------(a) material
------(b) formal
--(2) signified
--(3) interpretant
------(a) Spiritual
------(b) ecclesial
------(c) confessional
viability : validity :: practical : speculative
synderesis as interpretant (Chua)
Daoism as anti-consequentialist
A sacrament must be sensible, communicative, and suggestive.
'laboratories of experimental language'
No one comes to baptism by choice alone. (Jn 6:44; I Cor 12:13; II Orange can viii)
the crudeness of Scripture a sign of the Incarnation
The lack of natural law aesthetics is one of the severe historical weaknesses of discussions of natural law. It is understandable -- art, being casuistic by nature, depends most crucially on prudential & technical judgment. But these cannot be governed or ordered properly without presupposing precepts of natural reason.
doing justice as the key element of rationality
Wis 2:12, 17-20 & the Passion
Jas 4:1-3 & pleonexia
By faith we profess; by sacrament we receive what we profess.
Because charity is the foundation of the precepts of the Law, eternal life is the consequence of keeping them.
The artisan is the mime of the cosmos qua cosmos.
Socrates ends the Gorgias with a myth because Callicles and the other rhetors lack the right imagination to follow the argument.
per impossibile reasoning as limit reasoning (ultimate form of counterfactual inference)
Probabilities do not explain causes; causes explain probabilities by specifying relevant general possibilities, the probabilities being the proportion of specific possibilities to these general possibilities.
Some moral claims are more easily asserted with a truth-apt attitude than others.
Someone of moderate intelligence with a well-founded distinction will often avoid errors into which more intelligent people may still fall.
We only recognize that there are composite things by discovering that things change; observing changing things we discover that there are composite things.
A serious account of belief change requires looking not merely at support and possible inferential pathways but also at saliences.
Cause is that which links change and invariance.
natural classification as a limit concept
the intrinsically causal character of evidential reasoning -- we recognize something as evidential by putting it in a causal framework
It only makes sense to talk about reducing (say) biology to physics if biology and physics are concerned with finding the same general kind of thing.
Experimental reasoning is a form of reasoning involving examples and counterexamples.
History is founded on love of story and on love of that of which one tells the tale.
Virtue is the prize of virtue.
election systems as ways of mapping votes to votes in a constrained way (unfiltered votes to filtered, personal to electoral, votes for a representative to representative as voting record)
Kabbalah is nothing other than teh internal logic of Hebrew as a hieratic language.
Liturgical reasoning, like legal reasoning, involves using precedent in order to handle new situations. (The similarity, I think, runs more deeply than just structural.)
authority/law and the Fourth Way (indirect way of looking at good as a transcendental)
Double effect concerns material cooperation.
